1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector with an improved spacer for positioning contacts of the connector precisely.
2. Description of Related Art
Computers are widely used in the fields of E-commerce, E-business, Home network, Internet work station and so on. Each computer has a data storage center, e.g. hard disk, where computer software and business data information are saved. When the computer runs, the computer Central Processing Unit (CPU) continuously accesses the hard disk and retrieves data from the hard disk or stores data to the hard disk. For compatibility, the hard disk driver interfaces are standardized. There are many hard disk driver interface standards and the SCSI families and ATA families are the most famous in the last decade. The electrical connector used in hard disk driver must comply with the corresponding interface standards. An organization, called the Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (hereinafter referred to as SATA) Working Group and set up by APT Technologies Inc, Dell Computer Corporation, International Business Machines, Intel Corporation, Maxtor Corporation, Quantum Corporation, and Seagate Technology released a specification to define the SATA interface and the corresponding connectors. The specification defines a first type of SATA connector connecting to a cable and a second type of SATA connector mounting to a printed circuit board (PCB). The second type of SATA connector defined by the specification includes an insulative housing, a plurality of contacts received in the housing and two board locks fixed to the housing for attaching the connector to the PCB. The housing provides a guiding post on each one of two opposite side faces of the housing for guiding the connector to mate with a mating connector.
However, each connector is required a spacer to precisely space tail portions of contacts thereof from each other a predetermined distance in order to correctly ensure soldering such connectors onto the PCB. Moreover the tail portion of the contact has a length which is too long resulting in excessive flexibility thereof. It becomes tedious to correctly extend tail portions having excessive flexibility into contact tail portion receiving holes defined in the spacer. Thus an independent spacer is required to organize the tail portions precisely.
It is thus desirable to provide a spacer constructed as a separate part of an electrical connector with improved retention structure to alleviate or even eliminate the above-discussed problem.
An object of the present invention is to provide a spacer constructed as a separate part of an electrical connector with improved retention structure.
To obtain the above object, an electrical connector includes a first insulative housing, a number of contacts, and a second housing attached to the first housing. The first housing defines a first and a second cavities therein, a number of passageways in communication of the cavities. Each contact received in the passageways has a mating portion extending into the cavities, and further includes a solder portion extending away from the first housing. The second housing defines a number of channels for securely receiving the solder portions therethrough. The interengaging device arranges between the first and second housing includes a receptacle defined in the guiding post of the first housing and a hook formed on the second housing. The interengaging means further includes a block extending from a middle portion of the first housing and an auxiliary hook on the second housing. When the second housing is attached to the first housing, the hook is securely received in the receptacle of the guiding post in a longitudinal direction and the auxiliary hook to be securely received in a receptacle of the block in a traverse direction such that the second housing is secured attached to the first housing.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present embodiment when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.